~ "Of Issachar, men who had understanding of the times…" I Chron. 12:32.

Tag Archives: John Piper

Earlier this month, the Solid Joys app posted a devotional from Desiring God dating back to thoughts from John Piper from 1983. They are just as good in 2013 as they were thirty years ago. “When Words are Wind:”

Do you think that you can reprove words,
when the speech of a despairing man is wind?

In grief and pain and despair people often say things they otherwise would not say. They paint reality with darker strokes than they will paint it tomorrow when the sun comes up. They sing in minor keys and talk as though that is the only music. They see clouds only and speak as if there were no sky.

They say, “Where is God?” Or: “There is no use to go on.” Or: “Nothing makes any sense.” Or: There’s no hope for me.” Or: “If God were good this couldn’t have happened.”

What shall we do with these words?

Job says that we do not need to reprove them. These words are wind, or literally “for the wind.” They will be quickly blown away. There will come a turn in circumstances and the despairing person will waken from the dark night and regret hasty words.

Therefore, the point is, let us not spend our time and energy reproving such words. They will be blown away of themselves on the wind. One need not clip the leaves in autumn. It is a wasted effort. They will soon blow off of themselves.

O how quickly we are given to defending God, or sometimes the truth, from words that are only for the wind. If we had discernment we could tell the difference between the words with roots and the words blowing in the wind.

There are words with roots in deep error and deep evil. But not all grey words get their color from a black heart. Some are colored mainly by the pain, the despair. What you hear is not the deepest thing within. There is something real within where they come from. But it is temporary—like a passing infection—real, painful, but not the true person.

Let us learn to discern whether the words spoken against us or against God or against the truth are merely for the wind—spoken not from the soul, but from the sore. If they are for the wind, let us wait in silence and not reprove. Restoring the soul not reproving the sore is the aim of our love.

“My life is devoted to helping people make God their God, by wakening in them the greatest pleasure in them.” (p. 46; May we all, as shepherds, make it our aim to be able to say this in sincerity and truth!)

And in the pulpit, brothers, what a difference it will make if we are Christian hedonists and not Kantian commanders of duty! Jonathan Edwards, the greatest preacher-theologian that America has ever produced, daringly said, “I should think myself in the way of my duty to raise the affections of my hearers as high as I possibly can, provided that they are affected with nothing but truth, and with affections that are not disagreeable to the nature of what they are affected with.” (50)

As Christian hedonists we know that every listener longs for happiness. And we will never tell them to deny or repress that desire. Their problem is not that they want to be satisfied but that they are far too easily satisfied. We will instruct them how to glut their soul-hunger on the grace of God. We will paint God’s glory in lavish reds and yellows and blues, and hell we will paint with smoky shadows of grays and charcoal. We will labor to wean them off the milk of the world onto the rich fare of God’s grace and glory.” (51)

I believe that Piper has landed on the center of the Christian life when he says, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.” The “happiness of God” – as Piper calls it – otherwise recoginized as God’s sovereign freedom flowing in and from his perfect unity in the Trinity – shines forth in this statement. The joy of the believer – “satisfied” – based solely on the grace of God, also comes through in the statement. Both concepts flow right out of Genesis 2, where the Creator commands that man enjoy all things he has provided (and respect the limitations toward evil) if man is to stay in the perfect (i.e., “good”) will of God.

The non-professional pastor is preaching for the maximum glory of God and the maximum freedom of the believer! We are calling our people to the highest happiness, not to fleeting pleasures, and things that are passing away. The only message of such happiness is one that says the highest happiness is found in God alone through Christ by grace through faith. The professional pastor can be tempted with doing work with indifference toward moral good.

Discovering the truth of Christian hedonism changed my life years ago. I did not suffer from a Kantian form of stoic indifference toward good deeds. But I was not able to put together the unifying concept of the Christian life—of how joy motivated all things for those in Christ. (Truthfully, I’m not sure if I could have defined “joy.”) Now that I know, it also shapes my ministry such that I can do nothing other preach Christian hedonism, calling people to the highest joy in Christ.

I want people to be full of pleasure – of the highest pleasure—of God. In Lewis’ concept, I want to invite people to come away from making mud pies to enjoying a trip on a luxury liner on the seas. I want to preach in a way that hell is less appealing than a lump of charcoal.

Update 2011: I love these words:

When Jesus warned His disciples that they might get their heads chopped off (Luke 21:16), He comforted them with the promise that, nevertheless, not a hair on their heads would perish (v. 18). When He warned them that discipleship means self-denial and crucifixion (Mark 8:34), He consoled them with the promise that “whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it” (v. 35). When He commanded them to leave all and follow Him, He assured them that they would receive “a hundred-fold now. . . with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life” (Mark 10:28-31).

If we must sell all, we should do it, Jesus said, “with joy” because the field we aim to buy contains the hidden treasure (Matt. 13:44).

By Christian hedonism, I do not mean that our happiness is the highest good. I mean that pursuing the highest good will always result in our happiness. But almost all Christians believe this. Christian hedonism says more, namely, that we should pursue happiness with all our might. The desire to be happy is a proper motive for every good deed, and if you abandon the pursuit of your own joy, you cannot love man or please God. That’s what makes Christian hedonism controversial (46).

“God’s love does not conflict with his holiness and righteousness. On the contrary, the nature of God’s holiness and righteousness demands that He be a God of love. His holiness is the absolute uniqueness and infinite value of His glory. His righteousness is His unswerving commitment always to honor and display that glory. And His all-sufficient glory is honored and displayed most by His working for us rather than our working for Him. And that is love.

Love is at the heart of God’s being because God’s free and sovereign dispensing of mercy is more glorious than would be the demand for humans to fill up some lack in Himself. It is more glorious to give than to receive. Therefore, the righteousness of God demands that He be a giver. Therefore, the Holy and Righteous One is love.

Jesus is the incarnation of God’s love. And when He came, He said, “The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for man” (Mark 10:45).

The Son of man has not come seeking employees. He has come to employ Himself for our good. We dare not try to work for Him lest we rob Him of His glory and impugn His righteousness” (14-15).

I am prone to fail at properly mingling righteousness, love, and holiness. As a dad who loves his girls – and boys, but the sons are irrelevant to this illustration about dads and daughters – I have offered what I thought was love in the form of grace when I probably should have offered love in the form of discipline. But dads can be softies when it comes to their girls (just like moms are responsible for that sinful invention called “a momma’s boy”). The mis-education my children receive on love, righteousness and holiness is only reinforced when I feel the need to explain to my children that I am loving them even when I am disciplining them. “Even?”

As a shepherd I also struggle with the clover of love, holiness and righteousness. Can I love an erring member faithfully while demanding holiness of disposition and righteousness in deeds because I am seeking to be holy and righteous before God? Of course I can and should. But as with my girls, Occasionally, I offer love in the form of patience when love in the form of immediate confrontation is needed. This is a delicate dance we do as shepherds with erring members, for rebuke or correction too soon or too harsh is not love, nor does it produce righteousness. Neither, however, will a fool understand lengthy mercy and grace to be encouraging holiness.

Our model, Christ, does not suffer from limitations produced by a need to measure appropriate mixtures of love, righteousness, and holiness, nor does he wrestle with correctness in motives with any of these three characteristics. He is love. He is holy. He is righteous. He is all three from all eternity and ever will be in every action toward us. His character never suffers from a malfunction of system mergers. The God-centered God is a God-centered, all-loving, completely righteous, absolutely holy God.

Piper explains that love, righteousness and holiness operate in perfect harmony for the Lord. If I may say, our God has a holy righteous love, a righteously loving holiness, and a lovingly holy righteousness! When this is communicated toward us in the death of his Son for our sins, the God-centeredness of God shines forth even more. God is not an ego-maniac in desiring that we live for his glory even as he himself exists for his own glory. Rather, if anything, he is a redempto-maniac—one who, in order to save us from this corrupt and evil generation, must call us to the only uncorrupted, free-from-evil thing to which one can be called and demand that we give absolute attention to it. And that one thing is God himself. There is nothing else!

Our task is to proclaim a God-centered God with no thought of conflict between his love for sinners and glory for himself. This week, tell an unbeliever that God is God-centered, and he is love.

Exalting Jesus in Jonah

Ephesians

Becoming a Pastor Theologian

The Theory and Practice of Biblical Hermeneutics

Where Are All The Brothers?

The book you need to get men to your church

Glory Road

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